


Luke Skywalker and the Ghosts of Mortis

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Uncertain Point of View [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Episode: s03e16 Altar of Mortis, Episode: s03e17 Ghosts of Mortis, Have you ever been so Done that you become the Fisher King, Mortis (Star Wars), Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, POV Luke Skywalker, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 17:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: Your name is Luke Skywalker and you are the last Jedi.You are in self-imposed exile: searching for an escape, searching for balance, searching for answers.Your journey brings you to an impossible place: the world of Mortis, where someone is waiting for you.





	Luke Skywalker and the Ghosts of Mortis

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: unless you've seen _The Last Jedi_ and season three of _Clone Wars_ , none of this is going to make _any sense_.
> 
> Assuming this story makes any sense anyway.

Your name is Luke Skywalker.

You are the last Jedi.

You wish that you weren't.

You wish that you weren't the last Jedi because it's your fault that you are. Your arrogance blinded you to the danger you were in until it was too late. Your pride and ignorance cost you your home, your vocation, and your family.

You destroyed your nephew. You were so focused on what he represented—the next generation of Skywalkers, the beginning of a new Jedi Order, a chance to prove that you could repair what the Sith had broken—that you didn't notice what was happening to him. You didn't notice that Snoke was poisoning his mind. You didn't notice how that poison spread throughout your entire academy. You didn't notice until things were too far gone for you to do anything about it.

Worst of all, you forgot that he was your sister's child. One night, you looked at him and saw only the evil that he might one day do, and for a moment you forgot everything else and drew your lightsaber on a frightened boy.

You think back on that moment and you swear you can hear the Emperor cackling the way that he did when you nearly killed your father on the second Death Star.

If there was any justice in this galaxy, you would have been the one to die instead of everyone else.

Among the dead was a little boy named Ben Solo, killed by the man that he became, Kylo Ren. And you—Luke Skywalker, the man who brought Darth Vader himself back to the Light—couldn't do a thing to stop it or fix it.

You are the last Jedi.

You wish that you weren't.

You wish that you weren't the last Jedi because you wish that you weren't a Jedi at all.

* * *

You can't look your sister and brother-in-law in the eyes after what happened.

You don't know where to go other than “away” so you spend your time meditating, hoping for an answer. For a long time, the Force provides no guidance and you realize that it's because you don't know what it is that you want. You've heard stories about the first Jedi Temple and you are briefly tempted to go look for it, but you dread the idea of having anything more to do with the Jedi.

What you really want, you decide, is balance. Somewhere without the Jedi or the Sith. Somewhere outside of that endless _pointless_ battle.

The Force provides you with guidance; a guide, to be more specific.

Because he is a ghost, Ben Kenobi hasn't aged, but you have and you realize that you are almost the same age that he was when he died.

Age isn't the only thing you have in common now: he too had to live with the knowledge that the entire galaxy fell apart because of his lost apprentice. He too spent years wondering what he could have done differently and what would have happened if he had figured out what was really going on.

You know that Obi-Wan spent all those years on Tatooine in order to watch over you, but now that you're older you understand that he also needed to hide from his failures, away from everyone else. You feel bad for him but not nearly as bad as you feel for yourself.

He says again that he doesn't want to lose you the way that he lost Vader but you snap at him that it isn't the same thing. You're not looking to fall to the Dark Side, you're just finished with the hubris of _anyone_ thinking that they have a monopoly on the Force. Including the Sith. Including the Jedi. You want something else.

Obi-Wan looks troubled but then he tells you about a place he went with your father a long time ago, a place you might be able to find answers.

* * *

Mortis is outside of the Republic. It is outside of the First Order. It is outside of the Unknown Regions. It is even outside of space and time.

But you are the last Jedi and, more importantly, you are the son of Anakin Skywalker, so you at least have a chance of finding it.

When you do, you realize that this is probably going to be the place where you die. It doesn't bother you as much as you thought it would. You're the last Jedi and it's time for the Jedi to end.

Mortis is a strange, beautiful, haunting place, especially during the day when it is bursting with light and life. Every night, however, the plants and animals all die as scalding rains destroy everything not protected by shelter.

It isn't _that_ much worse than Tatooine. You'll be fine.

You wander around this constantly shifting landscape as it cycles between life and death, and wait for something to happen.

It does: you're no longer alone.

He is an old man. He is a ghost. He calls himself The Father and says that this place was once a fulcrum for the galaxy, a conduit through which the heart of the Force flows.

He tells you the story of your father's visit here and it goes pretty much the same way as every other story you've ever heard about your father, in that it starts with him showing up and ends with everyone dead.

The Father also tells you something that you didn't know about Anakin Skywalker: he was the central figure of a prophecy claiming that he would bring balance to the Force. You suppose that killing all the Sith and all but one Jedi might count as bringing balance, but you instead assume that someone got something very wrong in the interpretation. The Father says that he intended for Anakin to take his place as the guardian of Mortis, but he refused.

And then everyone died, which explains why you are talking to a ghost.

You realize that most of the stories that will be told about you start with a ghost showing up and ends with you following its advice.

No reason to stop now, you suppose, even though you know that it's unlikely that anyone will ever hear this particular story.

He says that you are not the Chosen One but that you may still have the potential to become the new guardian, the one responsible for maintaining the balance.

You can't say that this wasn't what you were looking for.

The only thing left, The Father says, is to wait for the other two to arrive.

It takes you a moment to understand that this place also needs an embodiment of the Light Side and an embodiment of the Dark Side. Replacements for The Father's son and daughter.

You tell The Father that if he's hoping for a Light Side user to show up, he's going to have a long wait.

* * *

Because the Force has a sick sense of humor, one _does_ show up.

Her name is Rey. Your sister sent her to find you and bring you back to save the galaxy one more time.

She is young, _upsettingly_ young, as young as you were when Ben Kenobi gave you the same blue lightsaber that she is holding out to you right now.

Of course, what she's really asking is for you to kill Kylo Ren, just like Obi-Wan was really asking you to kill Darth Vader. You're sick of people showing up with that lightsaber and demanding that you murder your relatives with it.

You tell her to leave before it gets dark. Of course Leia would send her—she's nearly as stubborn as your sister is, and you end up having to drag Rey inside before the lethal rain kills her.

It turns out that she's from Jakku and you feel an odd sense of kinship with this girl who is just as unfamiliar with rain as you were when you left Tatooine.

* * *

Rey can't see the ghost and you're actually relieved about that because it implies that she's going to leave eventually. She was snatched from the _Falcon_ and brought here without a ship, and you were worried that she would be trapped here forever.

She tells you about what happened to Han. You realize that you never apologized to him for what happened to his son.

Rey asks you to teach her to be a Jedi and you nearly laugh in her face. She asks again and again and again until you finally agree to teach her about the Force. A lot of what you teach her almost feels like the opposite of everything you taught your former students, as though you're trying to help her unlearn something she never learned to begin with.

She is as strong in the Force as your nephew was—is—and that is why you start to get very nervous.

Your anxiety increases when you discover her repeated visits to the areas of Mortis where the Dark Side is the most powerful.

Then all of your worst fears come true: you not only find her inside the obsidian tower, you also find your nephew there with her. He is older, his face is scarred, and even though he isn't physically here on Mortis you still nearly raze the tower to the ground with the Force because you can't let him do to Rey what Snoke did to him.

Rey doesn't take your interference well. She claims that she can turn Ben back to the Light Side. Looking at her is like watching your younger self talk about how you wanted to do the same for your father. You don't think she will succeed but, on the other hand, no one thought that _you_ would succeed.

She leaves—vanishes, actually, mid-sentence. You hope that you managed to teach her something even though your track record with students is historically abysmal.

Like your father, Ben is probably still in there somewhere, but unlike your father you couldn't reach him. You remember the years you spent together, traveling the galaxy and trying to recover as many fragments of the old Jedi Order as you could find. For someone related to Han Solo, he was a surprisingly serious child, but you learned how to make him smile. Being around him made you a much snarkier person, but it also made you a better person.

Which gives you an idea…

* * *

This is going to kill you but at least when you die it will be with the knowledge that you bought your sister and the rest of the Resistance enough time to escape.

It will also be with the knowledge that you drove your nephew completely insane with irritation.

When he discovers that you're only on Crait as a Force projection, you come very close to outright laughing at him.

You saw Leia one last time. You said your goodbyes. Your plan worked: Rey and Chewie arrived in the _Falcon_ just in time to rescue everyone.

You couldn't resist getting in one final taunt, though: “See you on Mortis, kid.”

You don't know why you said that. That was foolish: you'll be dead soon and he'll be looking for you and—

And he'll be looking for you. Instead of destroying the galaxy as the new Supreme Commander of the First Order, Kylo Ren will instead be spending all of his time trying to find a place that cannot be found unless it wants to be found.

The Force really does have a sick sense of humor but, at the very end of your life, it's actually working in your favor for once.

* * *

To your surprise, you aren't dead.

The Father explains that Mortis was the only reason why you survived: instead of draining your life force in order to maintain the projection, you tapped into the world's direct link to the Force itself. However, in the process, you guaranteed that you will never leave: you are permanently bound to this place. With that final explanation, the ghost vanishes and you are alone.

You are the guardian now. Your connection to the Force has changed; it is now more instinctive, more subtle, less conscious. Instead of altering things intentionally, you discover that they are already altered. You know things without even having to wonder or ask or figure them out. Things happen without your meaning for them to happen but the outcome always feels correct.

You wonder how much of what is happening is because of you, because of the Force, or because of this place. You get the growing suspicion that there may no longer be much of a difference.

You can feel the balance in the Force but it isn't complete. You are still waiting for the others to arrive.

You want to tell yourself that you are mistaken about what is to come. You want to tell yourself that this is not going to go the way that you think.

The Force won't let you fool yourself anymore.

* * *

You find Rey and Kylo in the middle of a furious lightsaber duel. You don't remember pulling them into this realm. You don't even remember walking from where you were to where you are now.

The Light Side and the Dark Side are locked in yet another destructive battle, only, for the first time, you can stop it.

You aren't the Chosen One, but there was a choice that was made and the choice was your own. You are the guardian of the balance and here, at last, are the ones you were waiting for.

You force them apart, force them to their knees, force them to stop. This world has given you abilities greater than the ones you had before, even though the more you use them the less like yourself you feel.

He isn’t Kylo Ren, not anymore. Not because he has let go of his anger and hate and the Dark Side—he hasn’t—but because this place is different. There are no Knights of Ren. There is no First Order. He is not in charge of anything here. You are.

He doesn’t know what this world is. He doesn’t know what his role is. He doesn’t know what it means.

He will soon.

Rey already knows a little about this place, enough that she was able to follow your nephew here, so when you explain to her what is going to happen she understands the implications. She doesn't _like_ the implications, but she understands, at least.

You aren't thrilled with any of this either, but the longer you are here on Mortis the less your opinion matters. This isn't up to you, it's just how things are: one person to embody the Light Side, one person to embody the Dark Side, and one person to keep the balance. Rey, Ben, and you. Trapped here on Mortis forever.

In a way, everyone gets what they want. Rey spent her whole life trying to understand the power that lived inside her, trying to find where she fit in, trying to understand her destiny. Now she will understand the Force better than she ever would as a Jedi.

Ben spent years trying to become his grandfather, trying to _surpass_ his grandfather and, like Anakin, was never able to completely let go of the Light. Now, if he wants to give himself entirely to the Dark, he can, and he won't be able to hurt anyone else in the process.

The galaxy will be better off: with Ben missing and Snoke and the Knights of Ren dead, the First Order will crumble. Your sister will use the time that she has left to make sure that it does. She was always wiser than you, smart enough to decide she wanted to be something other than a Jedi, smart enough to turn down your offer to teach her. Your only two surviving students are here with you. The next generation of Force users can make their own path, unburdened by history, unencumbered by the decay of the Jedi or the corruption of the Sith.

You wanted balance. You wanted to fulfill your father's destiny. You wanted to save the galaxy. Now you can. Now you will.

Your name is Luke Skywalker.

You were the last Jedi.

Now you're something else.

**Author's Note:**

> Music: Softengine, "Something Better"


End file.
